


we also are daughters of the great

by Elizabeth (anghraine)



Series: The Lady of Gondor [1]
Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, F/F, First Meetings, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-07
Updated: 2017-09-07
Packaged: 2018-12-24 20:56:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12020838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anghraine/pseuds/Elizabeth
Summary: Adrift after her victory over the Witch-king, Éowyn finds herself trapped in the Houses of Healing, with no one to grant her freedom.The Steward Denethor is dead, slain on the Pelennor. Théoden is alive, thanks to Gandalf, but has left her behind once more, leading the Rohirrim to battle against Mordor. With him is Éomer, Aragorn, Imrahil of Dol Amroth, everyone who might free Éowyn from this new cage.Everyone, it turns out, except the Steward's daughter.





	we also are daughters of the great

**Author's Note:**

> quentyl prompted "f!Faramir and Éowyn would be fun too if you prefer (either in the HoH or later as Queen of Gondor and Queen of Rohan, lesbians or not), or just anything with Faramir and politics honestly, female or not."

“Is there no deed to do? Who commands in this City?”

The Warden looked uncertain.

“I do not rightly know. Such things are not my care,” he said. “There is a marshal over the Riders of Rohan; and the Lord Húrin, I am told, commands the men of Gondor. The Steward was by rights Lord of Gondor, but he died from the wounds he took defending the City.”

“A death worthy of the heir to Cirion,” said Éowyn crisply. “He may rejoin his fathers in glory and honour. I envy him.”

He only shook his head. “Lord Denethor entrusted the rule of Minas Tirith to the Prince of Dol Amroth, and in domestic matters to the Lady Fíriel. The Prince rides with Lord Elessar, but—”

“Lady Fíriel?” Vaguely, Éowyn recognized the name. “The Steward’s daughter? Is she here?”

“Yes, lady,” he said, brow furrowing. “She worked in the houses until Lord Elessar came. No doubt she has returned to the Citadel.”

Éowyn gathered her skirts. “Then I shall go thence.”

“You shall  _not_. Your strength is not recovered so far,” said the Warden, firm when it came to his work. “I can send a message, if you insist upon it, but no more.”

With little other choice, she assented to this. In truth she did not expect much more than some polite nothing from the Lady of Gondor, but nevertheless, she paced restlessly in the gardens, waiting for the return of the messenger. A half-dozen times, she glanced up eagerly, only to see one of the men and women of the houses bustling around, or a gardener, or some soldier passing through. But then she heard her gaoler’s heavier footsteps, and another with him.

“Lord Warden?” Éowyn whirled around.

She was hard-pressed not to stare, for no messenger accompanied the Warden. At his side stood a young woman of perhaps Éowyn’s years, easily man-high—taller than Éowyn, taller even than the Warden. She looked lovely but severe, an impression heightened by her sober garb. She wore only a long, loose robe of Gondor-black, unrelieved but for the silver of her belt and the circlet under her dark hair, which was loose and very long.

“Here is the Lady Éowyn of Rohan,” said the Warden, with a faintly aggrieved air.

“Thank you,” the lady replied.

At a gesture of her hand, he bowed and retreated to the houses, leaving the two women alone at the far end of the gardens.

“I am Fíriel daughter of Denethor,” she told Éowyn, who had already guessed as much. “You object to the Warden’s care?”

“Not as such,” Éowyn said. “Do not misunderstand me, lady. It is not lack of care that grieves me. No houses could be fairer, for those who desire to be healed. But I cannot lie in sloth, idle, caged. I looked for death in battle. But I have not died, and battle still goes on.”

Lady Fíriel studied her, face inscrutable. “What would you have me do?”

Éowyn had not flinched before the foul beast on the Pelennor, or its fouler master. Yet something in her quailed under this woman’s gaze, both stern and gentle, like a—

She knew not what. But she feared she must seem a fretful child to her.

Éowyn lifted her chin. “I would have you command this Warden, and bid him let me go.”

“I?” Lady Fíriel turned a little aside, fingers reaching out to some flowering herb, a few scattered white petals stark against her skirts. Watered silk, Éowyn thought idly. The cut might be plain, but that much Gondorian silk could buy a half-dozen of the Mark’s finest horses. All the lords and ladies seemed to wear it here—but not black. Only Fíriel did that. Fíriel, daughter of the valiant old Steward.

The pang of embarrassment twisted into guilt. Not black for Gondor. For mourning.

“Walk with me a little, if you will,” Fíriel said at last, tone still mild, yet not one which allowed for opposition. It reminded her of Aragorn, in an odd way.

Éowyn nodded and they walked a short distance together, Fíriel’s arm hooked in Éowyn’s good one, their pace leisurely but not slow. Éowyn could tell that Fíriel was no shieldmaiden, or whatever they might call one here. She had a lady’s slim arms and soft hands—not frail, exactly, but without the muscles that Éowyn had built up. She expected little else, given the pallor of Fíriel’s olive skin, and the hair nearly to her knees. Still, her grip was firm and her step brisk; Éowyn thought she might be a horsewoman.

“The Warden has his faults,” said Fíriel, “but as a healer, his counsel is wise. I do not cross his will in matters of his craft, unless in some great need.”

Éowyn could nearly have wept, or screamed. “But I do not desire healing. I wish to ride to war like my brother Éomer and Théoden the king, or better still like—” Even in that moment, she could not speak so of the Steward to his daughter. “Like Déorwine and Grimbold, for they died, and have both honour and peace.”

Fíriel stiffened nevertheless.

“It is too late to follow the captains,” she told her, “even if you had the strength. But death may yet come to us all, and we must prepare ourselves to face it, each in our own manner. You will be better prepared if, while there is still time, you do as the healer commands.”

The doughtiest of warriors would have heard the sense in this. Éowyn knew Théoden or Éomer would have said the same—not only to her, but to any injured Rider. Yet each gentle word pierced her like a briar thorn, and by the end she felt more frail and foolish than the fine lady beside her. Tears sprang to her eyes; she blinked them back, but she could still feel one roll down her cheek. Éowyn dropped her head.

“But the healers would have me lie abed seven days yet,” she said disconsolately. “And my window does not look eastward.”

She glanced up in time to see Fíriel smile, sympathetic rather than mocking.

“ _That_  can be amended,” she said. “If you will stay in this house, and accept the care of the healers, and take your rest, I will ask the Warden to remove you to a room facing eastward. There you may look east, whither all our hopes have gone, and walk in this garden in the sun, as you will. And once you have recovered, I would have you reside in the Citadel, if you wish.”

Éowyn flushed in sheer surprise. She might not know much about the inner workings of Mundburg, but she certainly knew who dwelt in that uppermost circle—the rulers of Gondor, and their most honoured guests.  

“The Citadel? With you?” Éowyn said. “Why would you wish my company, lady?”

Fíriel’s fingers pressed on her arm again, no longer in comfort. She turned her head a little away, westwards, an undefinable melancholy settling over her. Her face remained unlined, her black hair untouched by frost, her spine straight, and yet she seemed older. Éowyn felt a sudden suspicion that Fíriel might not be her own age, after all. Her grandmother, she remembered, had looked no more than a woman of middle years until the end.

“My father sent all women in the City to the refuges in Lossarnach and elsewhere, but for the healers,” said Fíriel. “I hope to face steadily whatever may come, whether darkness falls upon our world, or—well, at present I am quite alone! I would welcome you gladly.”

“To this hall of your princes?”

“Yes, of course.”

Éowyn narrowed her eyes. “I desire no one’s pity,” she said. “Man’s or woman’s.”

“Pity is not contempt. You need not scorn it!” said Fíriel. “But I do not offer you pity.” She turned back to her, admiration unmistakable in her clear grey eyes. “You slew the king of the Úlairi, the wraiths who have tormented my people for centuries uncounted. It was he who laid waste to the realm of Lord Aragorn’s fathers. It was he who lured our last king to Minas Morgul and undoubtedly put him to torment. It was he who cut short the life of my own longfather, the Steward Boromir. And you slew him, Éowyn of Rohan.”

Something trembled on Éowyn’s mouth. It took her a moment to recognize it as a smile. Not from happiness, certainly—a certain satisfaction, perhaps. She had once thought the House of Eorl fallen beneath all honour. But she herself, she and Meriadoc, had struck down that fell wraith in his moment of triumph. Her uncle and brother rode with Aragorn and the Prince Imrahil, at head of the greatest host seen for generations, glory secured whatever befell them.

“He meant to kill the king,” said Éowyn. “I would gladly have died to defend him. He is my mother’s brother.”

“I understand.”

Éowyn was not certain she did. “Would you not have done the same for yours?”

A peculiar expression came over Fíriel’s face. “My mother’s brother is the Prince of Dol Amroth.” She glanced ruefully at her hands. “I suppose I might have stabbed my pen in the Witch-king’s eye.”

Éowyn nearly laughed. Instead, she said, “He had no eyes. Only flames.”

Fíriel shuddered. “For that deed alone,” said she, “you have won renown that shall never be forgotten. You are a lady as high and valiant as any hero of old—Beren, or Túrin, or Haleth. Who am I to pity you?”

You are princess of this city, thought Éowyn. The last of a house older than the Mark, and you face despair undaunted, and  _laugh_. Who is above your pity?

Aragorn, she supposed.

“I would be no comfort to you,” she said. “I am a shieldmaiden and my hand is ungentle.”

Fíriel seemed unperturbed. “Nevertheless, you may come if you wish it. Until then—” Her hand slipped away from Éowyn’s arm. She felt colder already. “I will leave you to your rest. I hope you improve in body and spirits alike.”

As she walked away, Éowyn called out,

“Lady Fíriel!”

Fíriel paused, and glanced over her shoulder. “Yes?”

Do not leave me alone here, Éowyn thought in a quick panic. Meriadoc was here, and all the healers, but no women except the old wives. All at once, she better understood Fíriel’s offer.

“I thank you,” she said, “that I may walk abroad, by the grace of the Lady of Gondor.” She bowed to her after the fashion of the Mark, as well as she could manage with her arm. “Perhaps I may come. I do not know.”

**Author's Note:**

> I've been poking at assorted fics for the f!Faramir 'verse in my head since ... I don't even know. This is from 2015, and relatively recent as these go.
> 
> I'm just resigning myself to the fact that it's always going to be a more fragmentary project than Catherine/f!Darcy, Lucy/f!Luke, Taraka/f!Tarrlok, etc. It's certainly never going to be the sort of self-contained, linear narrative that I usually go for. There is a more straightforward fic floating around my hard drive, which explains a lot of the bits and pieces of the 'verse, but as I have no idea when or if I'll finish that, I'm letting the different fragments go. They're written as individual puzzle pieces; they should be comprehensible on their own, but they all fit together.


End file.
